The Chinese reporter’s dramatic eye rolling on her fellow journalist’s lengthy question was caught on the national television during China’s 13th National People’s Congress on 13 Mar 2018, went viral and became heavily memed.

Video screengrab

The report was identified as Liang Xiangyi from a financial news site Yicai.

She was caught on national television rolling her eyes in annoyance during the long question of a fellow reporter, Zhang Huijin from American Multimedia Television USA.

The long question was:

“The transformation of the responsibility of supervision for state assets is a topic that everyone is concerned about. As the director of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, what new moves will you make in 2018?

“This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Reform and Opening-up Policy, and our country is going to further extend its openness to foreign countries.

“With the One Belt One Road Initiative, state-owned enterprises have increased investment to countries along the route of One Belt One Road, so how can the overseas assets of state-owned enterprises be effectively supervised to prevent the loss of national assets?

“What mechanisms have we introduced so far, and what are the results? Will you please explain this to all of us? Thank you.”

Wow that is indeed a long question…

Liang’s reaction struck a chord with the netizens on Weibo, “Her eye roll reflects the feelings of the country’s people to empty words!” one person posted.

“I was thinking about the exact same thing, this is too funny,” another said.

When it hit the social media, numerous memes popped up, with many referring to the two journalists based on the colour of their outfits, as Liang was wearing a blue jacket while Zhang was wearing a red.

The scene was then clipped and uploaded to Youtube, and it exploded and became an international sensation.

A screenshot of her conversation between a friend was leaked and circulated on the social media. Her friend commented and laughed about her eye roll on the camera, Liang replied “because I was standing beside an idiot … her questions were more than the answers given”.

Weibo censored the reporter’s name after the incident, but it didn’t stop people from searching for it.

Simple type her name on FreeWeibo, a website made to publish contents censored on Weibo, and it turned up to be the number one censored search term.